Other peoples’ work…

I can’t believe I did that. Yesterday morning I went in to the studio to get Grover a little box for his show and tell before school and what did I find? A kiln full of beads chugging away at 900 degrees. I forgot to send it into the anneal schedule. While some of your first reactions might be, ‘You could have burnt the place down!’ mine was, ‘Oh crap. How long before it will be cool enough to use again today?’ Don’t worry, it can’t burn the place down, unless it exploded. It’s on stainless steel, far away from anything flammable.

Dang dang dang. Now I’m debating whether I pull out the old, trusty Chili Pepper and fire it up for the first half of the day. I’m thinking yes. It’s Friday and no torching again until Monday and I’m on the verge of a breakthrough. Ha ha. That’s what I call it when I make a lot of crude pieces leading up to a new style. The ideas are flying out right now and I want to get ’em out so I can get to the refining phase. If you like primitive, you better jump on it, or pray I stay stuck in designing mode.

<> <>Shown here is another pillar bead. I don’t know what it is about this shape but I love it. A tall rectangle (35mm) with each side being about 14mm before the raised embellishment. And etched. In designing mode I find myself having inner struggles. I hear myself saying, ‘No one will want that shape or that design. That has been done thousands of times, why would anyone want that? They can get that anywhere.’ As that goes on I am constantly fighting back and saying things like, ‘They might not want it now but you just wait. They will.’ Continuing on to tell myself that I have to follow what is in me and get it out for the right thing to appear. I think it’s time to start reading Art & Fear again. I’m also remembering the words of Merrill Mahaffey at our recent art league critique. Exploit elements you love, make it your own and make it say something about yourself.

<>Ahhh. Time to go get the Chili Pepper running. Except now, I can’t go off of yesterday’s designs because they’re still annealing. Urgh.